RE: corsets, does anyone know how pregnant women managed? Did they get a nine-month reprieve from wearing them? Did tightly laced stays hurt the developing fetus?

Oh, I'm another one who doesn't brush my teeth until after breakfast, because it makes the food taste disgusting, and also it doesn't make much sense to me to brush and then mess my teeth up with food particles again right away, KWIM?

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"I've never been a millionaire, but I just know I'd be darling at it." - Dorothy Parker

If you scroll down the reply page, you can see the most recent replies and there is an 'insert quote' option at the top right of each reply and it will paste that whole reply into the reply box.

True. But if you want to quote something earlier than what is available from the most recent replies page . . . Say that there's a 4-pg thread and you want to quote someone from Pg 2 . . . Is there a way to do this? Once you're in "reply" mode?

If you scroll down the reply page, you can see the most recent replies and there is an 'insert quote' option at the top right of each reply and it will paste that whole reply into the reply box.

True. But if you want to quote something earlier than what is available from the most recent replies page . . . Say that there's a 4-pg thread and you want to quote someone from Pg 2 . . . Is there a way to do this? Once you're in "reply" mode?

If you want to quote someone from page 2 and page 4, you can go to page 2 and hit quote. It will take you to the 'reply' page. Then look for the quote from page 4 and hit 'insert quote'.

If you want to quote someone from every page of a twenty-page thread... perhaps you are reading too much Ehell.

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You are only young once. After that you have to think up some other excuse.

Why does the A/C button light up/turn on in my car when I turn the knob to defrost (like, from blowing on my face/feet to blowing on the windshield). Should I leave it on? Does it actually help defrost the windshield faster?

I think it's so it doesn't fog up the windshield...BUT I'm not sure, so probably someone else knows better than me.

The AC dehumidifies the air being blown on the windshield so your defogging attempt isn't counterproductive.

Ok, not feeling dumb any more thinking I should know that....I've never heard that phrase before!

I was sitting here trying to think of every term I've ever heard for feminine products and I just couldn't think of one that had any sort of connection to rags I fully expected to have a 'duh' moment when I got the answer (wouldn't be the first time!).

Also, apparently the origin for "ragtime" music. In many, er, houses of pleasure during that era, the young ladies who were indisposed and therefore unable to see individual customers at that particular time entertained by playing the piano instead.

Why does the A/C button light up/turn on in my car when I turn the knob to defrost (like, from blowing on my face/feet to blowing on the windshield). Should I leave it on? Does it actually help defrost the windshield faster?

I think it's so it doesn't fog up the windshield...BUT I'm not sure, so probably someone else knows better than me.

The AC dehumidifies the air being blown on the windshield so your defogging attempt isn't counterproductive.

Cool! Thanks, horsphreak! Now maybe I can get my carpool buddy to stop freaking out about his 'malfunctioning' AC.

Cyradis- I always assumed that the maids would live in shared quarters and would help each other into their corsets in the morning- plus, most maids wouldn't be able to afford whaleboned corsets so theirs wouldn't have been nearly as tight. Also, if a maid was a nanny who was in her forties, then she may not have worn a corset at all!

^ Also maids could not possibly have had corsets laced as tightly as the ladies of the house because they precluded much physical activity. Hard to scrub the stairs in a tightly laced corset! And if I understand correctly, it really wasn't looked upon kindly if maids were too attractive anyway, for obvious reasons.

I forgot about the whalebone. That all makes sense. The parlourmaid probably had to be tiny waisted and pretty but she waited at table and carried trays mainly. The housemaids had more to do. My back aches imagining scrubbing a floor in a corset.

In "The 1900's House" series that the BBC did, the mother was sewing and dropped her needle. She had a very difficult time bending over and getting down on the floor to pick it up, because of her corsets. I can't imagine wearing corsets to do housework--I don't even like to wear an underwire bra doing housework.

the bending in corsets thing is sooo overblown

I know a lady that wears heavy corsets with her SCA garb and I watch her put up and take down tents and all manner of other work in what to me would seem to be a very constricting garment. http://www.elizabethancostume.net/effigy.htm this is her and the garment in question. and when I said something to the effect of how do you move? she reached down and touched her toes (standing)

RE: corsets, does anyone know how pregnant women managed? Did they get a nine-month reprieve from wearing them? Did tightly laced stays hurt the developing fetus?

Oh, I'm another one who doesn't brush my teeth until after breakfast, because it makes the food taste disgusting, and also it doesn't make much sense to me to brush and then mess my teeth up with food particles again right away, KWIM?

I think they wore their corsets as usual until they began to show. I don't know if they gave them up entirely. In one of Anne Perry's novels, Paragon Walk, one character looks critically at her great nephew's wife and thinks she's lacing herself too tightly for her stage of pregnancy. In Callander Square Charlotte Pitt, one of the main characters, is no longer wearing dresses with small waists at about five months along.

Also the miscarriage and maternal death rates were way high at that point, far more than for primitive countries, as I remember.

Part of the reason is attributed to maternal nutrution, maternal dressing (ie: corsets) but most to lack of exercise from the 'confinement' which lasted 6 months prenatally and and several weeks post natally.

The peasants in France faired far better than the elite. They had a better diet (fresh food, no sugar) and had to work.

There were maternal corsets that were bigger and could be loosened. They thought it was good for you though because it supported the stomach. They didn't 'tight lace' during pregnancy though. A normal corset was not tight laced unless you were one of the very fashionable young women.

There is a reference in one of the Cranford stories about a lady being advised to wear a bandaging of some sort during her last month. The information is imparted in embarassed whispered tones by her sister to another lady- the MTB being, of course, at home.